Yesterday evening, the Davis City Council gave final approval to a single use bag ordinance, which they had initially discussed and voted on in October.

The ordinance goes into effect next July and applies to all stores. Davis joins just a handful of other local jurisdictions (San Francisco, Santa Cruz County, Palo Alto, South Lake Tahoe, and Malibu) in further reducing plastic bag pollution by including restaurants under its bag ordinance.

Like the majority of the existing local bag bans, the Davis ordinance allows recycled content paper and reusable bags to be distributed for a small charge. Customers may bring their own bag, purchase a permitted bag in the store, or go without any bags altogether.

Davis, a college town outside of Sacramento with a population of over 65,000, is the first city in Yolo County to adopt a plastic bag ban.